Vaio laptops return to US, but are consumers interested?
Vaio, the computer business formerly owned by Sony, is taking its first steps outside of its native Japan.
Sony sold the PC business back in February, and although it does retain a minority five percent stake, as a result of the declining laptop market, it opted to focus on smartphone sales.
When size matters, Acer Chromebook 15 is big [Review]
I am not a fan of overly-large laptops, but if I were to buy one, Acer's 15.6-inch monster would be among my top choices. The Chromebook packs in lots of value, which first and foremost is 1080p resolution to match the large screen, a benefit that is atypical for the price and size class. Screen brightness is no match for the Toshiba Chromebook 2, but the matte finish compensates for dimness by dramatically reducing glare. Meanwhile, the IPS display gives great viewing angles.
The point: Acer doesn't just offer bigger, but better, among the overall Chromebook category, where dim TN screens are standard fare. That also can be said of competing Windows laptops, where with same size screen in the price range, or even more costly, resolution typically tops out at 1366 x 768. Chromebook 15 is 1920 x 1080. By more than size, the display is a big benefit.
Go, Google's C-killing programming language, hits version 1.5
Six years and six updates later, Google's own programming language, Go, has reached version 1.5. Go 1.5 sees Google "removing the last vestiges of C code" from the code base, and the runtime, compiler and linker are now all written in Go rather than C.
Despite a massive overhaul to the code base, Google assures users that Go 1.5 maintains the promise that Go programs will continue to be supported by all subsequent releases. There is also a move towards mobile devices, with ports of the iPhone and iPad architectures and linking to the Go mobile project opening up the possibility of developing for Android and iOS.
Bing News now connects related stories to give readers better context
Always-connected mobile devices make it easier than ever to plug into the news and keep abreast of what is going on in the world. But reading on the move means that it is very easy to fall into the habit of skim-reading articles, or just reading part of a story which can mean failing to grasp the wider context of the news.
To try to help with this problem, Microsoft today announces a new feature for the mobile version of Bing News. Smart labels have been added to stories to give readers an at-a-glance way to see how a particular story relates to other stories and topics. It helps to, as Microsoft puts it, "connect the dots between news stories so you get the bigger picture".
Amazon UK ends Trade-In program that no one seemed to know about
Amazon has announced that it is ending its Trade-In program in the UK. What's that? You didn’t know about it? You're not alone, and this could well be part of the reason for the closure; it was hardly a well-advertised operation.
As you'd guess from the name, the Trade-In program gave people the option to exchange games, consoles, accessories, and books they no longer wanted for Amazon gift cards. Very little notice has been given as the program is set to close on 31 August 2015. If you are one of the people who has been making use of Amazon Trade-In, you need to act quickly so you don’t miss out on your earnings.
Parallels Desktop 11 adds Windows 10 integration, extends Cortana to Mac desktop
Parallels IP Holdings GmbH has released Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac, a major new release of its market-leading virtualization tool.
The app, which allows users to run virtual versions of Windows, OS X and Linux in a virtual environment, adds full support for Windows 10 while readying itself for El Capitan’s imminent release. It also promises significant performance improvements.
Intel to touch-first early adopters: No Windows 10 for you!
"Wintel, Wintel – why hast thou forsaken us?"
It's a sad day for early adopters of Microsoft's touch-first OS strategy. Customers who bought some of the first examples of Windows 8.x hybrid systems -- the HP Envy x2 and ElitePad G1, Dell Latitude 10, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 and Miix series, ASUS VivoTab, et al -- will not be able to reliably run Windows 10 because the powers-that-be are refusing to release a compatible video driver. In fact, anyone with an Intel Atom z2760-based PC is fresh out of luck when it comes to Windows 10 support. As far as the hardware vendor community is concerned, the demise of Windows 8.x signals End of Life (EOL) for your systems.
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 brings container support
As promised by Gabe Aul just over a week ago, Microsoft today releases Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3. One of the biggest new additions to this build is native support for Windows Server Containers, Microsoft's take on Linux containers.
Developers have been begging for container support in Windows Server for some time now, and the introduction of this feature could be the start of Microsoft offering up some serious competition to Linux server software. This is not the only new feature to be found in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3, there's also software-defined datacenter enhancements and new Nano Server functionality.
Lara Croft GO coming to Android, iOS and Windows Phone
When Tomb Raider was released in 1996, the heroine, Lara Croft, was a sex symbol for computer nerds. While the graphics were archaic by today's standards, the well-endowed character looked real enough for gamers. Heck, Angelina Jolie eventually played her in the film.
Today, Square Enix announces that Lara Croft will be titillating mobile gamers on iOS, Android, and surprisingly, Windows Phone too. Will you buy the all-new Lara Croft GO game?
Lightning strikes four times and Google loses cloud data
They say lightning never strikes twice, but they're wrong as Google reports that it's lost some data after the power grid serving one of its European data centers suffered four consecutive lightning strikes last Thursday.
Google Compute Engine (GCE) disks in the europe-west1-b zone data center, located in Belgium, suffered I/O errors in the strikes and 0.000001 percent of disks suffered permanent data loss. GCE allows customers to run virtual machines and store data in the cloud.
Lenovo issues BIOS updates to fix security vulnerability
Lenovo has issued a BIOS fix for some of its machines, thus preventing a vulnerability which could allow potential hackers to gain control of a desktop or a laptop computer from the manufacturer.
In a press release published on the Lenovo website, the company has urged consumers to manually update their BIOS. Newer machines will have the fix by default.
Syntonic launches BYOD billing management for smaller businesses
The rise of BYOD offers businesses improved flexibility and employee productivity, but those things come at a price. BYOD can lead to extra costs such as needing to reimburse staff for air time.
Mobile platform provider Syntonic is launching DataFlex, an operator-independent split billing solution designed to cost-effectively deploy, operate, and manage BYOD usage for businesses of any size.
How to force Cortana to use Google instead of Bing in Windows 10
Microsoft is pushing Bing heavily in Windows 10. Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft Edge, and while you can change this to Google (or any other choice), the process of doing so is far from intuitive -- you can’t simply pick "Google" from a list of options.
Cortana, Microsoft’s built-in personal assistant, is powered by Bing too, which means when you ask her a question she doesn’t immediately know the answer to, she’ll open up your default browser and display a list of results sourced from Microsoft’s search engine. There is a way to get her to use Google instead though, but you won’t find this in any Settings.
Age ratings come to YouTube and VEVO music videos
Under a new program designed to protect children from seeing adult content, YouTube and VEVO have announced new age ratings for music videos in the UK.
It is the first initiative of its kind, which will block videos that show inappropriate content. Musicians like Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and Robin Thicke have irked parents with the lack of clothing and rather provocative music videos released on the web.
Google News may now speak your language
There are significantly more spoken languages than countries, but the problem is that the internet frequently doesn't speak them all, leaving many users out in the cold. There are some ways around that, as both Google and Bing will try and translate things for you.
Now Google News is expanding its language options to become accessible to more of the world. Available languages will now include Bahasa Indonesia, Bengali, Bulgarian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Thai.
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